Monday, December 23, 2013

More on "the missing link"

Patty has a sneaking suspicion that PJ Tate actually DID know what happened at Cielo in August of 1969, but that he couldn't do or say anything about it, because there was a federal investigation going on into the workings of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love (aka "The Hippie Mafia" or BEL). Up until a few years ago, nobody talked much about this huge federal
investigation because it was, and perhaps still is to some extent, being actively pursued.

Supposedly, the federal investigation into the BEL is "wrapping up" now: The last BEL-related arrest was Brenice Lee Smith (pictured at right) in 2009.
Another member was recently located near Lake Tahoe, but since he is a "family man" and has stayed out of trouble for many decades, he was not
prosecuted.

You probably know that Colonel Tate was retired, but that he had been fairly high up in army intelligence. There is a passage in Restless Souls where Alisa Statman writes that PJ staked out Cielo for weeks until some "bikers" showed up and taunted the dogs there from behind the fence. PJ then purportedly followed them back to Spahn Ranch. Why didn't PJ go any further with his investigation? He had suspects, he had experience, he had connections. Patty does not wish to trivialize his pain: she has only the greatest respect and admiration for this man whom she never met. Surely, he must have been PISSED: Sharon's acquaintances' involvement with drugs put her in the worst possible place at the exact wrong moment in time. Because he was a man of honor, he would not have been able to divulge details to which he may have become privy if indeed a federal investigation was ongoing. Viewed in this cold, hard
fluorescent light, the look on Colonel Tate's face (above, left) screams "monkey
trial" to Patty.

In 1972, there was a large law enforcement conference in a
"hotel ballroom" somewhere in San Francisco, according to Tendler & May's BEL and Schou's Orange Sunshine. At this conference, a list of 750 known associates of the BEL is said to have been revealed. These associates were loosely organized into maybe 40 separate distributorships up and down the coast. Where is that list now? Perhaps lead investigator and professional creepy crawler Neil Purcell has a copy of the list, because he was supposedly there. Neil was not only instrumental in breaking up BEL operations in California, he is also the officer who arrested Tim Leary, his wife and his son Jack on 12/26/68 in Laguna Beach. The Learys were in possession of a rather small amount of weed for which Tim was sentenced to ten years in prison. You know the rest of that story, right? Anyhow, that list may end up being the holy grail if Patty can find a copy.

It was this document that Patty was searching for when she found copies of the 1972 and 1974 US Senate Hearings on the "Marijuana and Hashish Epidemic," instead. Patty was interested to learn that the BEL was heavily involved in a passport fraud operation in order to mask their comings and goings abroad. This, the hearings read, was confirmed by Interpol, who once investigated Bruce Davis' presence in London at the time of Joel Pugh's death (above). This statement in the Interpol letter caught Patty's eye: "The local police...understand that he has visited our country more recently than April, 1969. However, this is not borne out by our official records." Interesting, no? Patty was also interested to learn that Bruce (pictured below in 1961) was also an early adopter of LSD, as per his parole hearing from October 4, 2012:

"PRESIDING COMMISSIONER FERGUSON: And you say other psychedelic drugs, did you use LSD? INMATE DAVIS: I started in 1965. ...PRESIDING COMMISSIONER FERGUSON: Other psychedelic drugs as well? INMATE DAVIS: Mescaline...Psilocybin....PRESIDING COMMISSIONER FERGUSON: Okay...You've mentioned hallucinogens, how about depressants or stimulants? INMATE DAVIS: Very seldom. Sometimes some stimulants. PRESIDING COMMISSIONER FERGUSON: What kind, like cocaine?INMATE DAVIS: No. Methamphetamine."

These are the drugs that Patty was talking about in her first post, which bring us back to Gary, and to Patty's stalker having another cow. Why have the 48 color photographs associated with the investigation into Gary's murder (here) been lost to us? CieloDrive has promised to keep his eyes peeled for the photos, but at last report, there has been nothing. WHY?

Patty believes that drugs figure very heavily into the overall motive, and apparently Sandy Good does too. Friend of the blog "Giselle" found Sandy's old ATWA site on the wayback machine (see
here). Sandy, pictured above right with an (evil-)lizard, stated on her website as late as 2000 that although "seriously flawed," the Shreck book is the closest
account to what really happened. The Shreck book is very pro drug motive, as you know.

Kimchi at lsb3.com shared that the LASD arrest report of 5/2/68 states that "Suspect Good was again shown evidence held item #1, #2, #3 and #4 and asked if it was hers, suspect stated, no, never saw it before. When asked if she smokes marijuana suspect stated, yes, but I don't like it. When asked where she got the capsules, suspect stated from Gary Hinman in Topanga.(see here)." Is it a coincidence that Tex and Sadie had a baby food jar full of white powdery speed at Spahn right after Gary's murder, which Tex wrote about in his book, "Will you die for me?" It wasn't in the form of pills (aka "reds"), it was POWDER. The stuff Sandy said came from Gary was also powder in a capsule, not pressed. Gary was an amateur and would not have had a pill press like the one at left, which was recovered from an actual MDMA lab. Was the "speed" in the baby food jar methamphetamine (trade name methedrine), an MDA precursor that Sadie got from Gary's basement?

It is very interesting to Patty that places that the Family have been known to frequent parallel places where the BEL had business at around the same times. Family members were driving up and down the coast all the time, Mexico to
Canada. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Phil Kaufman who wrote Road Mangler Deluxe states that he met Manson at Terminal Island, where he was serving time for smuggling marijuana from Mexico. At one time Charlie gave Kaufman's "Joint Venture" address as his own, when he applied for a Union Oil Company credit card (see here).

It is also Phil who was with Graham Parsons when he died in Joshua Tree. Phil stole Graham's body to burn it near Joshua Tree rather than let him be buried at home in New Orleans (see here). Joshua Tree was also home to a large commune that Onjya Sipe stayed at (see here), as did a woman who told Nicholas Schou that she saw Charles Manson at a Haight-Ashbury free Diggers' kitchen called "The Living Room."

The guy who was the main BEL cook around the time of the murders was Nick Sand, a Brooklynite who jumped bail and ended up in Canada. Furthermore, Pic Dawson was a purported drug dealer from Canada. In the Robert Ackerley clip, he says that he never intended to end up in the Haight, because he and a friend were originally driving to Canada. (as an aside: He also mentions hanging out with Eric Clapton in the Haight. This blog has a photo of Clapton at Cass' house, eating BBQ next to Pic Dawson: see here).

Ruth Ann was either travelling with or picking up on Hawaii a large amount of LSD at the time she dosed Barbara's hamburger. We know she disappeared and left Barbara in her hotel for several hours before she returned, then high tailed it back to the airport. The BEL was there at the same time, dealing acid and creating what later became known as "Maui Wowie." Did Ruth Ann bring the acid with her in a premotivated plan to murder Barbara, or was it an offhanded stunt she pulled in the process of picking up or dropping off some sort of shipment? (Hey Stoner, the bong babe is for you). If this was the case, it is entirely possible that Barbara was brought along as an unwitting, disposable "mule."

Clyda Dulaney was murdered in Ukiah, halfway between where the Witches of Mendocino were living in Navarro and where the BEL relocated to from the Haight (namely, Potter's Valley). Who is/was Johnny's "weird aunt," who may know what actually happened according to Johnny himself (see here)? And what about Santa Barbara? and Malibu? and Oregon? and Mexico? and San Diego? and Esalen? And....a bunch of other places that come up again and again? Stay tuned, because of course, THERE'S MORE.

Did Charles Manson, at the time, realize that "Belladonna" could be an important $$$$ drug of the future? Drug companies were already catching on to it. It was included, very mildly, in "Contact" cold capsules - until the Feds demanded it be REMOVED from the capsules. Kids discovered how to extract just the Belladonna from the capsules and were thus making Belladonna (Deadly Nightshade) the new thing.

IF so - maybe that's why the Family was moving out to Death Valley - IT grows wild out there and Gypsy knew how to brew it just right so as to make for a potent sleep relaxant - without any side effects.

IF MK used her brew instead of that deadly shit, he would likely be alive today.

OH! there's a new book out that exposes how Richard Nixon and BILL CLINTON used the Southern Stratagy to declare WAR on drugs. They both created new drug laws that mostly cause MINORITIES to be incarcerated. That's why the prisons in America are half full of Black and Brown minorities. Look out - Helter Skelter!

Ruthie was not your average 17 year old girl. Patty was watching "locked up abroad" last summer. Most of those who got caught and locked up were "mules," and many of them were very young when it happened. Case in point: Billy Hayes of Midnight Express.

Thank you, sir. Patty is doing a little reading...seems that scopolamine is in Rohypnol, the notorious date rape drug. It is also used in interrogations, and can be extremely dangerous in high doses. She was hoping that it would look a bit like the MDA cluster, or even like psilocybin, but it does not. Still good food for thought.

Hey...speaking of food...looks like Psilocybin is a tryptophan derivative. Maybe that's why they make Patty pass out cold?

This post is really terrific and has much food for thought. The BEL and the investigation is indeed intriguing. I do not want to rehash old arguments and ruin anyone's holiday season, but the story of Col Tate and the bikers gets my gander up, and it's already been fought at this blog in the past so if anyone really wants the details they could find them. But the timeline has problems for it to have any meaning and the dogs wouldn't have been Sharon's anyway, probably the police dogs that LK commented on when Bugliosi had her revisit the scene, etc.

I personally don't believe the story at all, as much as I would like to.

Patty I know you are studying chemistry, so you are probably Right and I am probably Wrong. But I always thought Rohypnol was flunitrazepam only and didn't contain scopolamine. Combining a benzodiazepine and an anticholinergic in one medication seems kind of counter-intuitive to me, but maybe there is a medication out there that has both active ingredients. It might make sense, actually, since benzos, opiates, and anticholinergics all potentiate each other, which is why they are sometimes put in the same medication at reduced dosages (i.e. promethazine/codeine cough syrups).

I have tried scopolamine. Ingesting scopolamine (called hyoscine here) is honestly one of the most unpleasant and regrettable things I have ever done to myself. It makes you extremely drowsy, and exceedingly and horribly thirsty. The entire time I was on it I not only felt physically sick/poisoned, but had a feeling of impending doom. I spent an entire night in my bed kicking at my sheets because I thought it was full of snakes. The next day I kept hearing voices whispering at me, hallucinated putting clothes out on the washing line when I did no such thing, and saw a picture of the Spanish Prime Minister in a magazine talk at me. The worst thing about this drug is that when these terrible things happen, you forget you are 'high' and think they are real. Imagine all the fun of being delirious (there is none), then magnify that by, I dunno, 10 million billion.

I haven't tried atropine, but from my understanding (I have tried dimenhydrinate, which is synthetic but very similar, i.e. equally fucking horrible) all anticholinergics have basically the same effects. They suck the big one, so if anybody really thought this was the 'new thing' in drugs they were severely brain-damaged.

The military, however, totally did think anticholinergics were the 'new thing': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-quinuclidinyl_benzilate

Okay, granted, this is from wikipedia, but it is footnoted: "About one in five emergency room admissions for poisoning in Bogotá, Colombia, have been attributed to scopolamine.[21] In June 2008, more than 20 people were hospitalized with psychosis in Norway after ingesting counterfeit Rohypnol tablets containing scopolamine.[22]"

So its counterfeit Rohypnol? See this is interesting because colloquially something can be called one drug but actually be something else. We keep seeing this over and over.

PS the WORST drug experience Patty ever had as a "kid" was Robitussin. Ugh...gross.

Haha Patty, yes, like it was "coming down fast". My heart felt like it was going helter skelter, anyhow, especially when there was a sudden noise or something moved out of the corner of my eye. Really, really nasty stuff.

And, to counterbalance your Hideous Propaganda (j/k), many of my best drug experiences came from Robitussin. :) Although as I was addicted to dextromethorphan for 6 years, you could probably also say it was my worst drug experience too, in a way.

Here's a kicker- I had friends who used to COMBINE large doses of Travacalm (scopolamine/dimenhydrinate/caffeine tablets) with Robitussin. Imagine that; or, preferably, don't. They were a bloody mess.

Patty read today that a recent analysis of several samples of "molly" showed at least some proportion of methamphetamine. It is marketed to the kids as a purer form of MDMA, but apparently it's just more of the same old shit.

Someone should research if there was any correspondence between Nixon and Bugliosi.

Nixon had called Tim Leary "the most dangerous man in America". Nixon also wanted the death penalty for possession of LSD. Nixon also called Manson "guilty" before Manson was even tried.

People have wondered why Bugliosi went for the "Helter Skelter" motive rather than the much more obvious one of trying to get Beausoleil out. -- The Manson trials were not really a trial of Manson -- they were a trial of LSD and hippies, who Nixon thought were going to destroy "his" country.

"Hey Dick --whatever you think of us is totally irrelevant,both to us now and to you,we are the present,we are the future,you are the past,pay your dues and get out of the way" -- Jefferson Starship, "Mau Mau" -- "Blows Against the Empire" -- 1970

Just thought I might add here that I read one of 'Tex' Watson's psych reports from when he was first arrested the other day. He describes the plants they took to get high as 'belladonna' but then as 'white trumpet flowers - with spiky balls/seeds and big heart shaped leaves. This would be datrua he is describing that perhaps someone at the time told him (and everyone else) was belladonna...

I'm all for thinking outside the box, but I still don't see anything here compelling or convincing about any significant link between the BEL and "the Family." Sure, both were based in California in the late 1960s. Both moved around California. One made acid and had messianic opinions of it. The other took acid and may have sold some. "The Family" probably took some of the BEL's legendary Orange Sunshine, but so did perhaps millions of other Americans. I'm just not seeing much of a link with the evidence yet presented. That said, one aspect of the BEL that doesn't make much sense is the death of its leader, John Griggs (aka 'the holiest man in America,' according to Leary). Supposedly he overdosed on, or was poisoned by, psilocybin in early August 1969? Who's ever been killed by psilocybin? Nobody, right? Doesn't make sense. PS: Maybe you were just being funny, but Phil Kaufman's friend was the great Gram Parsons, not Graham Parsons.

The key impact of both crimes is that Conspiracy to Commit Murder and Felony Murder do not require the defendant to actually kill anyone or even be present when someone is murdered to be guilty of murder. That, of course, rather obviously is directed at Charles Manson.